Discussion Post: Week 7

I hope you’re enjoying the long break, everyone! In the meantime, with Presentation II right around the corner, how do you feel going into our second round? What changes, if any, do you intend to make to your approach? How will you handle the challenges of giving your demonstration while keeping your attention on your audience, or distilling complicated technical content in a manner that everyone can understand?

Looking ahead, what web portfolio areas have you identified as key trouble spots that you’ll want to work out on our last lab day this semester? And how is your group progressing on its Presentation IV preparations? Remember that there won’t be a lot of time between our next few presentations, so you probably won’t be able to just, say, wait until after Presentation III ends before devising your last presentation. You’ll likely want to front-load your work when possible, instead.

As always, please remember to submit your Presentation II outline via SafeAssign at least 24 hours before your scheduled presentation, and bring a printed copy of your outline and rubric to class on your presentation day. I would also recommend that before your presentation, you test any visual aid that involves the computer — and don’t save the visual aid on your H:\ drive, since logging in and out of everyone’s accounts to access different H:\ drives will take more time than we have for most of our presentation days. Flash drives, CDs, E-mails, or cloud storage are all better ways to make sure that you have the files you need for your presentation.

It should be noted that Rasmussen’s polls have been more generous than others toward Romney throughout the campaign cycle (see my stratified sampling explanation from two weeks ago), but the gains themselves still appear to be legitimate.

Needless to say, David Axelrod, the president’s top campaign advisor, pledged on Thursday that there would be “adjustments” to his debate strategy. We’ll see exactly what changes he makes for the second presidential debate, scheduled for October 16, which will cover domestic and foreign policy in a town hall format. In the meantime, we can look forward to this Thursday’s vice presidential debate between running mates Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. There’s some concern from both sides, however, about whether voters will tune in to view the later debates, an issue that a number of analysts pondered before the Wednesday showdown (see below). It’s possible that Obama missed his one chance to shut down Romney, much like George W. Bush’s similar unpreparedness and impatience in the first 2004 debate against John Kerry caused his massive pre-debate lead to disintegrate and almost cost him the election.

And yet, while Cabrera became only the 15th player in history to win baseball’s Triple Crown, and the first in the past 45 years to do so, some fans and analysts argue that he isn’t the AL’s Most Valuable Player this year. According to them, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels is a better choice based on newer sabermetric statistics like Wins Above Replacement (WAR), particularly as it relates to his defense, an area in which Cabrera is much weaker. These analysts say that the old-school statistics like home runs, batting average, and RBIs, are outdated measures that give a woefully incomplete picture of a player’s true value. But it’s still hard to argue with such a historic achievement when making the case for statistics that are arguably just driven by the sabermetric fad.

We’ll find out the results of MVP balloting in the coming weeks, but we’re already seeing stunning results from the MLB playoffs. This year began baseball’s new playoff format, with two extra teams and a “wild card round” to open the postseason. In the National League Wild Card Game, the St. Louis Cardinals won the one-game showdown against the Atlanta Braves on Friday in a comeback 6-3 victory fueled by three Atlanta errors. But the box score hardly told the whole story.

With Atlanta down three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Braves got runners on first and second with only one out. The batter, Andrelton Simmons, worked his way into a full count before popping up the ball to shallow left field. As Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma and left fielder Matt Holliday both converged on the dropping baseball, though, they got confused about who was calling for the catch. Kozma had closed on the ball and positioned himself to catch it, but at the last second, he veered away to let Holliday make the grab, even though the left fielder was nowhere near it. So the miscommunication led to the ball dropping between the fielders, and all the runners advanced. Just like that, the Braves had the bases loaded with only one out.

Except that they didn’t. In the last second before Kozma veered away and the ball struck the grass, left field umpire Sam Holbrook invoked the infield fly rule, so Simmons was automatically ruled out. That decision cost the Braves a key baserunner and gave the Cardinals a free out with which to work.

The somewhat confusing infield fly rule, which is designed to protect the offensive team, basically works as follows. If runners are on base, and a pop-up is hit such that a fielder can catch it with fairly normal effort, the umpire may rule the ball to be caught. This prevents trickery by a fielder who may purposely not catch a routine pop-up. Otherwise, in a situation like the one we saw Friday night, Kozma could have let the ball drop while the baserunners remained on first and second, then tried to quickly turn a double play before they could advance. But such a call has to be made early enough for the runners to react accordingly, and it demands that the catch require only routine effort. This last-second call had no real benefit for the offense, even though protecting the offense is the entire reason for the infield fly rule’s existence.

As some analysts later pointed out, the infield fly rule is basically a judgment call, and even the lateness of this call fell within the confines of the rule: “When it seems apparent that a batted ball will be an Infield Fly, the umpire shall immediately declare Infield Fly for the benefit of the runners.” This was not readily apparent until Kozma finally camped under the ball, so that’s why Holbrook made the call then, even though it ultimately came just as Kozma moved back away from the spot. But Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez angrily ran from the dugout to argue with the umpires, eventually lodging an official protest against the call.

But even that’s not the full story. Because while the Braves themselves were upset enough over the ruling, their fans went absolutely ballistic, lobbing cans and bottles onto the field to express their disgust. One of the umpires was struck by a liquor bottle, and the umpiring crew had to move their discussion to the center of the field in order to remain out of the fans’ throwing range. Cardinals manager Mike Matheny ordered his team to return to the dugout for their own safety, and the game was delayed for 19 minutes while Braves crew members collected the garbage. The long delay forced Matheny to change pitchers, bringing in his closer earlier than he had intended, and it cast a pall over the first-ever wild card game, which St. Louis claimed a few outs later.

Every dot you see here is a piece of trash that an angry fan threw.

I... would not want to stand this close to an angry mob.

The Braves’ protest was denied before play even resumed, as only an outright misapplication of a rule can be overturned; judgment calls cannot. So the Cardinals move on to face the Washington Nationals in the National League Division Series. This game was almost certainly the last for 40-year-old veteran Chipper Jones, who announced his retirement from the game earlier this season. Perhaps that’s the most disgusting thing of all: that his own fans did more than the umpires to tarnish his final game, literally trashing the field in his final outing. As Bleacher Report columnist Ryan Rudnansky said,

What Braves fans should have realized on Friday was that they were essentially throwing trash on the game Jones loved and basically littering a field he called home.

Let me put it this way: When the time comes for you to be seen out of your workplace, would you like it if your coworkers started throwing garbage at you?

Oh, right. There was another game on Friday, wasn’t there? Right. So, in the American League Wild Card Game, the Baltimore Orioles continued their Cinderella season by ousting the other AL wild card, the Texas Rangers, 5-1. They’ll play the New York Yankees in the American League Division Series. Elsewhere, the two remaining Division Series started last night, with the Detroit Tigers beating the Oakland Athletics 3-1 in Game 1, and the San Francisco Giants facing the Cincinnati Reds in their first game of the series in the evening.

Over in the hockey world, the NHL owners and their players are planning more talks for the coming week, but their failure to resolve their collective bargaining agreement dispute has already forced the league to cancel all 82 gamesover the first two weeks of the season. Both sides have asked the other to draft a new proposal before the next meeting, which could either signal that they’re working to reach a middle ground or that negotiations are going nowhere.

While hockey players have a bit more leverage than their counterparts in, say, football or basketball, since hockey professionals could reasonably go abroad to pursue the game, some analysts are saying that the players ought to do the “right thing” and concede negotiations in order to allow the season to begin, even if they could get more for themselves through further negotiations. Others are arguing that the NHL could use this as a reason to expand with additional teams in Canada, particularly since Canadian fans are likely to be especially incensed that the NHL’s lockout is preventing their seven teams from competing.

Finally, we move to college football. Specifically, let’s take a look at Ohio State University. The Buckeyes, as you may recall, are already banned from playing in any bowl games this year due to past NCAA rules violations. So they already didn’t need any more bad headlines.

Cue quarterback Cardale Jones. On Friday, Jones decided that the following tweet was a really good idea:

We ain't come to play SCHOOL!

In fairness, I suppose he really isn’t getting much from his classes, judging by his grasp of the English language.

Now, we could ask the question of whether Jones was right. There are university staff and administrators out there who prize their athletic programs enough that they’re willing to compromise any shred of academic integrity. One has to wonder, for instance, what on earth was happening in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill over the past few years. The entire department is still embroiled in a massive academic fraud case over numerous violations from 2007-2011, including dozens of courses with no lectures, no readings, and no class meetings. These courses were taken almost exclusively by student-athletes. In one such class, AFRI 370, the only assignment was a 20-page paper which, judging from various reports, required minimal work by the students and a great deal of effort from the tutors and counselors who wrote the paper for them.

Now, I’m not about to say that OSU has the same problems, and it ought to be emphasized that UNC-Chapel Hill is working to right its wrongs in that area. Cases like that, however, do make some a little more inclined to agree with Jones, however disappointing that may be.

But the issue isn’t even whether or not he was right. It’s more the fact that the tweet itself was downright moronic on multiple levels, even beyond Jones’ creative grammar. For one thing, if he actually had any thoughts about the issue beyond the self-centered, “Wah, class is boring. I wanna play football!” then he would have known that his university, which gives him the opportunity to be part of their football program, couldn’t just abide by his words. We can debate the validity of the term “student-athlete” all day, but OSU staff still have to try on the “student” side (or at the very least, act like they’re trying). The whole notion of a student-athlete is, at least supposedly, that an individual is going to school while being an athlete, not one or the other. Jones’ public dismissal of education itself just doesn’t mix with that. Instead it puts the magnifying class back on the people who choose to let him be part of their program. As one critic put it, “That kind of attitude has no place in college, and frankly no place in sports.”

If nothing else, most college athletes who haven’t yet signed professional contracts would probably appreciate some kind of education, just in case they’re one of the many who will “go pro in something other than sports.”

And here’s the really amazing part. Jones, the guy who thinks that the purpose of college is football, who doesn’t want to do anything at college other than play football… hasn’t played any college football.

If you’re a football fan who didn’t recognize the name Cardale Jones, don’t be ashamed. The freshman is OSU’s third-string quarterback, behind starter Braxton Miller and backup Kenny Guiton. Jones has yet to play a single down this year, and some speculate that he may be redshirting during his freshman season. If repercussions are about to be handed down, it’s always possible (however unlikely) that the plan may change. OSU has suffered enough media headaches over the past year that the university can’t be happy about dealing with this newest black eye, regardless of how highly touted a high school prospect Jones may have been last year. We’ll see.

Well, this was a sports-heavy post this week, but that’s just how it happened with the news stories that were out there. (Besides, there are also the other articles of interest, and if you prefer, you can always post about another news story altogether.) Let’s just close this with my favorite response to Cardale’s tweet, which came from @OSUArtProfGrieg:

35 responses to “Discussion Post: Week 7”

Presentation 2 is proving easier to work on than the first one. Presentation 1 seemed sort of ambiguous as far as what the purpose was, whereas this second presentation is clearly meant to inform and/or demonstrate. With a clear goal it was not as difficult for me to select a topic and begin to work on it. Aside from finding a few sources to use, my presentation is done. I think this presentation will go better than the first one for me because I have a solid bank of knowledge on the subject and should be able to deliver the presentation without the use of note cards. Staring at my notes was a big weakness in the last presentation and I aim to correct that with this next round.

Keeping in mind that I have no investment in the Cardinals or the Braves, I think that the infield fly rule was invoked properly. Albeit, a little late but like you said in the post, it was a judgement call and the umpire didn’t think it was a catch that required “ordinary effort” until the player catching the ball set up right under it. There is no way the umpire could have known that the ball would have taken a turn and dropped.

I must say though, it is quite disappointing the way the fans acted. Having lived my entire life 2 miles from where the Oakland Raiders play, I think that fan conduct can sometimes be (at the very least) sub-par.

I, much like Obama, was pretty surprised by the debate. And more so by how many of my friends and family, who I thought were still die-hard Obama fans, jump over to Romney’s boat. I read a lot of FB posts flat-out call Obama out and other not-in-the-best-light names. It was pretty shocking and actually kind of worries me for the election. Not that I’m the biggest Obama fan or ant-fan of Romney, I think it’s just the fact of sudden change of hearts in so many people.

Other than that, I’m pretty excited about Presentation II, I feel pretty ready for it!

I think presentation two will go a lot smoother than presentation one. I think the topic that each person chooses will also play a factor in how well the presentations go. It will be interesting to see how each person balances focusing on the class while trying to focus on what they are explaining.

I am not gonna lie, just like a senior I haven’t even begun to work on Pres II but I have been thinking about it. I think my challenge will be what to specifically present on. I am doing Visual Basic and I am unsure of how to make it as less confusing as possible but still beable to get the point across as to what and how the program works. As for the rest of the posts this week I wish there were different things in the above “article” besides presidential debates and sports.

Presentation two is coming along great. I felt there was more time to prepare for this presentation, even though this one is longer. Also I felt that going through the first “intro” presentation and doing the evaluation, really refreshed everything from Com 114. Altogether I’m still piecing everything together now, putting the presentation and PowerPoint together. However, I have a lot less stress into creating this presentation and delivering it.

I would like to comment on the tweet that OSU’s THIRD STRING quarterback posted about how he came to school to play football, not to “play,” class. First of all who is Cardale Jones? O thats right nobody has ever heard of him because he never gets to play. I mean what an ignorant statement for him to make. Most likely he has a full ride scholarship to go to a very prestigious university such as Ohio State and he doesn’t even want to get an education while he is there. If he continues to sit the bench he cannot expect to get drafted to the NFL which means that he will probably have to work a normal job just like the rest of us. I guess he just needs to either get a lot better at football and get drafted or actually think before he makes ignorant statements. Obviously he really should start attending English class judging by his grammar in the tweet.

After looking a bit more into the matter I found out that he is indeed on scholarship. This is close to enraging to students such as ourselves focused on funding our own education and being held accountable. Not only that, but if he shows this kind of attitude towards class it would be a long stretch to believe that he is any kind of academic master. Also, what kind of message is he sending to others in his position? Is this the attitude of the football team as a whole? Maybe he is the one to finally release some of the team’s frustration out to the public. Granted they are ineligible this year, however next year they are back in the running. I might understand this outbreak more if it was a senior who knew his time was up. But this kid would have had the chance to play for ‘real.’ Or, maybe he lost that by talking as an ungrateful student. They should make him pay for his schooling and learn to appreciate what he has been given.

Presentation II is coming along just fine. I have not yet started on my outline yet, but that is not due to lack of knowledge on my topic. I have simply been too busy with other classwork. The difficulty of keeping my focus on the class but still being able to demonstrate my topic properly should be able to be balanced out. I am presenting how to perform two separate tasks, therefore I will speak directly to the audience at the beginning of the presentation discussing what I will talk about, demonstrate the first task, break to re-address the audience, and then present my second task. This should keep the audience involved but still properly show how to do the desired tasks.

What’s this, an entire blog of politics and sports? I officially have nothing to respond about! So instead, I will talk about my progress in the class. I am pretty excited for this next speech, even though I am not close to prepared yet. I think it will be really cool to learn all the things that the different people in the class want to teach us. I am also nervous because I have to teach a 20-30 minute lesson in my following class on the same day. So much to do!

I have only one topic to talk about and that is the issue of Cardale Jones. To put it in terms that sports fans might know…Come on man! Look if you think college is dumb and boring and you don’t want to be here to get an education, then leave. The way I see it you are taking money that could go to someone that could actually be a benefit to society. To delve a little deeper into the issue, if college is worthless why don’t you go become a pro-athlete and get injured your first season. Then what, what will you do with your life then. You have no way to make money through your sports because you injured yourself to the point of not returning and you have no education, you now have two options, fast-food or announcing. These kind of comments should surprise me but with this generation turning out the way it has, it doesn’t.

Not much real interesting in the world of politics. R-1, O-0 is the way i saw it. Bill Maher is a major contributor to Obama and I think he said it best by saying: “Obama took my million dollas and spent it on weed.”
>http://www.examiner.com/article/bill-maher-on-obama-debate-looked-like-he-took-my-million-and-spent-it-on-weed&lt;
I really don't see things getting much better under the current administration other than Obamas golf game. Maybe he needs another 4 years to trying and get on the PGA tour. The real issue I have is if something would ever happen to him, health or other-wise. Look at who would replace him. If you tune into the the VP debate, you will know what I am talking about.

On Micheal Vick with a dog, it's there something about his sentencing on animal ownership, kind of like a hacker and owning a computer… If not, there should have been.

I’ve been following the playoffs pretty closely and I have to say I’m really disappointed in the nationals. Their decision to shut down Strausburg, our best pitcher, may cost us an advance to the next round. I almost question what the point was to shutting him down if this is what the players work toward each year. I’m also rooting for the Giants and last night’s win will push it to game 5 making it an interesting night to watch and keep up with the games.

It seems as though more and more schools are coming out with scandals having to do with their athletics programs as well as their academic integrity. I think it’s ridiculous that UNC had fake classes to bolster GPA for their athletes. More and more it seems that these “student-athletes” are more focused on their potential athletic career than their education, and to have schools reflect these wishes disturbs me.

I really hope the NHL players can work it out with the owners. It’s really getting old to hear that the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB(?) players atre complaining about getting a few million dollars less than what they currently make. It sounds so greedy. They get paid (A LOT!!) to play a game. Yes they put in a lot of effort and they put their bodies on the line, but I hope that they would be doing it because they like to and not for the paycheck.

First off, I am pretty upset about the MLB playoffs this year because for the first time in 5 years my beloved Philadelphia Phillies are not in the playoffs. But, without a doubt we’ll be back next year! Now to this years playoffs, I cannot believe the call that was made in last Friday’s Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals game. Those umpires made a terrible mistake that should not have happened. On top of that it happened at a key point in the game causing the Braves a valuable base runner. The Braves fans also acted in a very selfish way when they were throwing trash on the field and being an angry crowd. That was the last game that the should be future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones would ever play infront of his home crowd, a place he called home for 21 years. The very last game they decide to act like animals on the exit of his career. Hopefully that will not be how he remembers his fans. But what do I care I’m a Phillies fan!

I myself watched the entire presidential debate and agree with the text that Romney definitely had the upper hand. For lack of better words, I feel that Romney wanted it more. He seemed more passionate about wanting to win the debate, win the position as president, and turn the country around with the policies and plans he feels will work. I also agree that Obama was on the defensive for a large portion of the debate. I feel that this debate opened America’s eyes to Governor Romney. I will most likely vote for him and after watching the first debate, I believe he will continue to own the other debates despite what Obama tries to do.

I am feeling confident about Presentation II, but am having a hard time determining what type of visual aid to use that will be the most effective. I know how I will change how I present my material. Several friends and I got together to watch the political debate. We ended up talking more about politics and commenting on how Obama and Romney presented themselves than watching it. We also watched several commentaries on the debate afterwards. I have been looking into politics more this year since I will actually be able to vote this major election. I missed the last one by a few months.

It strikes me with awe what Cardale Jones said. I just don’t understand how he can think he isn’t going to college or academic reasons, especially since he attends such a well known university such as Ohio State. Yeah, they have been really good in the recent years in many different sports, but college is college. And he’s third string? What? Maybe he was tweeting that as a joke, but he needs to realize that the moment he puts on that jersey, he is representing his school, on and off the field. I definitely agree that it reflects very poorly on the university. It makes you wonder what kind of student athletes are they looking for. Plus, I don’t know about everyone else, but I personally would rather attend a school that is better known for its academics rather than sports. I guess Cardale and I just have different values and opinions.

I don’t watch sports but it really is pretty cool how much people pay attention to the people involved. I mean every year is a different season, but each current season matter because professional sports are a part of almost everyone’s identity these days. It is really weird when I think about the politics of sports because at first those two things should be very separate entities where in reality they really aren’t.

Personally, I believe that politics, in the United States as a whole, has declined over the past couple of decades. Candidates are no longer concerned with issues and passing legislation like lawmakers should be. The emphasis is placed on winning elections and doing whatever necessary to accomplish that goal. Even when lawmakers attempt to write legislation there is typically a long, time consuming debate process, minimizing the amount of work that is actually accomplished.

Campaigning also follows the same cynical process. Particularly in this presidential election, the candidates are just bashing each other instead of presenting their opinions and ideas. Also, I think that the President is very limited on what they can accomplish due to the constant struggle between Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate. I really wish they could just settle their differences and focus on creating appropriate legislation.

I am pumped for my presentation II. I have chosen to describe how to make parmesan chicken. I will be making half of the dish vegetarian for my roommate. I don’t have much experience cooking with meat substitutes but I’m looking forward to the challenge. As far as changes ill make to this one I want to focus on not stating behind the computer the entire time.

I would like to talk about a recent airspace intrusion. No, it is not a lost pilot flying into restricted airspace nor a pilot accidentally flying into Chicago’s busy airspace. I would like to talk about a Islamic group flying a UAV into Israeli airspace. On October 6, a UAV was spotted entering Israeli airspace and was intercepted and shot down by the Israeli Air Force. This UAV was able to enter and proceed 25 miles into Israel and was able to fly over sensitive military installation. What does this mean? It is a problem for the Israeli nation for it proves a gap in national defense. To allow a Islamic group a way to provide surveillance over their enemy could prove problematic if warfare ever broke out between the two parties. Hezbollah has confirmed the fly over and lucky for the Israel, the UAV was only carrying a camera and not any kind of weaponry.

The Cardale Jones issue was pretty comical, what I find more funny is that this college freshmen, 3rd stringer, makes front page of ESPN and we are even talking about it in this class. His words should not carry this much weight and they probably wouldn’t if it weren’t for the fact that he is highlighting a bigger issue. Student athletes don’t see themselves as students, shoot, neither do his classmates, nor many of his professors. They see the school’s main money makers and they have got to be on the field. Football is, for most schools, the number one way they receive media attention and many universities make this very clear to their own professors. I have heard ugly rumors about administration forcing professors to pass athletes so they can play on Saturday. Cardale Jones is still an idiot, but the universities have allowed him to be. If he fails, he still wins.

The Ohio State subject is an interesting issue. You wonder how collegiate athletes stand in terms of academics. I understand they have to spend a lot of time away from campus and the classroom for athletics, but as the NCAA annoyingly insists, they are not to be called players, they are “student-athletes.” The NCAA is right in that they should be students before anything else, but this case seems to highlight the fact that they may or may not be putting school before athletics. It’s a difficult situation as well, because of the current nature of collegiate athletics being huge cash cows for universities. I would like to think this is not the case at Purdue, but I don’t know if I can support the claim. I mean no offense to our athletes, but they have a reputation for taking easier classes/majors than many students. As I mentioned, this seems to be the culture within collegiate athletics, and it would be really difficult to change.

The NHL lockout is very frustrating for a hockey fan like myself. Over the past few seasons, NHL TV ratings have hit new highs, attendance has improved in the smaller markets, and general interest has greatly increased. With the lockout, the NHL has lost all of its momentum, and it is because NHL owners are being very greedy. The owners want to take more and more from players, as well as distribute more money to smaller market teams. Instead of revenue sharing though, the owners instead would like to take this money from players. Players do have leverage to go play overseas, as many did, but owners are not budging. In my opinion, there will be a season, but if I were to guess, it will not start until the Winter Classic, in January. My hope is that the owners will finally realize the damage they are causing to the image of the NHL, and they will lower their demands from players. Even though I will be there when the NHL season begins, the longer the lockout continues, the more casual fans the NHL will loose.

Presentation 2 wasn’t too bad. Having a podium to stand behind/against while demonstrating made speaking to the audience easier. It really helps to sort out all potential bugs/problems that might arise during a presentation beforehand. I’m looking forward to having presentation 3 over and done with so that the group presentation is the last thing to do. It’s always easier to speak in a group rather than alone up at the front.

Choosing who should be MVP in baseball could be trick. There is definitely more to baseball than home runs, batting averages, and RBIs, and that should be taken into account. But there is also the fact that being the MVP implies, to me at least, that the person did the most to help the team win. The number of home runs and batting average are usually a good identifier of that. Either way, I think Cabrera did an amazing performance during the season, and that should be recognized.

I think Cardale Jones doesn’t know think about his future much. He isn’t the leading quarterback, he’s the third-string quarterback. There’s a good change he won’t be asked to play for a professional team, since he hasn’t even played. In that case, he would need a back-up plan for a career. He won’t have one if he doesn’t care about his classes and tries to do well. He has no guarantee that he will play football for the rest of his life, so he shouldn’t act like he does.

Oh baseball! This is why I love fall. To be honest, I was very well planning on making this post at some time earlier during the week but my team has just been the biggest distraction in the world. The Yankees are absolutely KILLING it this season and right now as they continue into extra innings. I’ve just been on the edge of my seat all week, what with the Yanks dragging themselves into game five of the AL east playoffs thanks to Raul Ibanez and Ichiro.

Excuse the excessive fan-girling, but this season has been nothing but amazing and I couldn’t care less about league or team MVPs because every baseball game I have watched (including those of the NL) have been close and action packed. I don’t know why, but it feels like every player has been bringing out their A game save for A-Rod from the Yankees (don’t know what his deal is right now).

-sigh-

I’m so hopped up on baseball right now that I am just kicking myself for not choosing ‘how to understand baseball’ as a presentation 2 topic. That would have been killer and an excuse to break out my Ted Williams jersey… Hell, I’d break it out anyway.

I find it quite interesting that the debate is so important to the candidates success in running. Of course it’s not a sole decider and Obama can recover from his lack of sucess, but it’s odd how the media coverage of the debate seems to make everyone care so much about it. I do think it’s good though that the debate makes the candidate both come out and say they’re oppions on issues so us as voters can see what they have to say side by side. It’s a good venue in order to see what each canidate stands for and who would be the most likely to vote for. Of course if one of them has a hard time in the debate, it will not help in attracting voters and he will have to use other methods in order to gain support.

I would like to comment regarding the presidential debate. I am not really into politics and i always thought i was democratic and would vote for Obama. However after the debate i was really impressed by Romney. He spoke really well and was extremely prepared. Im excited to see where this presidential race goes and what the results will be. Hopefully it is a good race

Presentation II definitely seems to be off to a good start for me. As for the group project, we have yet to get together and figure things out. This years election definitely seems to be a close one between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. On the other hand, the Cardale Jones issue is catching a lot of attention in press lately. I have to say that I am definitely surprised that his words are being taken so seriously to take legal action. It was definitely not the right message to convey about college, but everyone has the right to have any opinion they want. If he does not want to be educated and just wants to play football, no one has the right to tell him otherwise. He is old enough to be making his decisions regarding his own life. He wasn’t being offensive to the university in any way.

Presentation 2 is better than presentation 1. 3 people did the presentation 2 on last Thursday, They did really good with confidence. I should do well on the presentation 2. I thought I need to do presentation on coming Tuesday. Luckily I checked the schedule on blackboard and the presentation date is actually 23rd of October. How lucky I am!. This week 8 will be very busy week, because I need to show and tell for my senior design project. This is related to my graduation directly. So, I need to pass this demonstration.

Portfolio is one of the good methods to show myself to people who are interested in me. I will try to show my resume, what I have taken (courses), and my senior design project. This will take time to make good one, it is worth it.

I find it pretty funny how dumb some people can be, I’m referring here to Cardale Jones, what a joke. It really bothers me how student athletes feel entitled to so much, there’s always some kind of argument about whether they should get paid and apparently whether they need to go to class. I think they ought to look at their alternatives, if they didn’t come to college what would they be doing? Because it most professional sports, maybe all for all I know, you can’t turn pro right out of high school any more. So they could either come to college to showcase their talents and learn something at the same time or they could go work at McDonalds until they can turn pro. Like the commercial says 99% of athletes go pro in something other than sports and judging from his third string status and his off-the-field problems that began one month into his college career, Cardale Jones is not going to be a one percenter. He should be incredibly thankful to be at such a well known university and he better take advantage because after reading his tweet its clear he would have been lucky to be admitted to a community college.

Not entirely sure who i’ll be voting for in November yet but i have to say I was very impressed by Romneys performance during this last debate. He had Obama on the ropes all night and very much looked like the confident incumbent rather then the hopeful new challenger. Obama looked down right uncomfortable and could not stop staring at his note cards all night. He hardly ever looked at Romney while speaking while Romney stared directly at Obama during ever point he made. I think he definitely made a big improvement in peoples mind after this debate.

I find it appalling that student athletes are turning more and more into athletes and less and less into students. The point of college is to get an education. Playing a sport along with getting an education is a privilege. Universities should not stand for this kind of attitude. There are plenty of other students who would do anything to be in his position. Now, aside from getting school paid for as well as numerous other amenities, many student athletes think they deserve to be paid more! If you want to get paid, get your degree and get a job like the rest of us in college. I know it’s hard work being a student athlete, but it was your choice to play sports. If that’s the way that Cardale Jones feels about College, I think OSU should get rid of him.

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